Christmas Gift
by clair beaubien
Summary: The week after Thanksgiving, Bucky asks Tony Stark if he can talk to him. Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark.


_Sgt. James Barnes._

That's a name I wasn't expecting to see on my caller ID. I was in D.C. for meetings and paperwork and blah, blah, blah, but I'd decided to give myself a break so I was in the lab working on my latest piece of genius when my phone rang. I stared at the display in confusion.

_Sgt. James Barnes._

'Sir, shall I take a message?' Jarvis asked, nudging me out of my bewilderment.

"No, no, I'll get this, J." Why was Bucky Barnes calling me? It couldn't be good. It couldn't be bad, either, I supposed. There were a dozen other people he could call - was _supposed_ to call - if there as trouble.

I set down my acetylene torch and picked up the phone. "Hello?"

Pause.

"Hello? Hi? Mr. Stark? This is - uh - this is James Barnes..."

And even though he was myth as well as legend in the intelligence world, even though we'd spent months helping Cap scour the earth for him, even though I'd met him a few times, most recently - if only briefly - just the week before at Thanksgiving, he added,

"…Steve Rogers's friend?"

After everything he'd been through with HYDRA, and everything he was still going through to heal from it, I knew better than to be even gently snarky with the poor guy, and not just because Steve would knock my block off if I was, so I skipped the snark and kept with the gentle.

"James, hey." I didn't call him Bucky. This was only about the fourth time I'd ever talked to him directly; he hadn't told me I could call him Bucky and I didn't think I deserved the privilege of asking. "How're you doing?"

"All things considered? I guess - I guess I'm pretty darn good."

I smiled; it's hard not to like a guy who comes out of seventy years of torture and degradation with such a 'never-say-die' spirit.

"Glad to hear it. What can I help you with?"

Another pause.

"I wanted to ask you something, talk to you about something, Dr. Banner said you were in town and - um - I know this place where they make great Egg Creams and I thought maybe you'd - um - let me buy you one?"

"Egg Cream? Yeah, my Dad mentioned those once or twice. Where do you still find Egg Creams in D.C.?"

"Here in Steve's apartment?"

I had to chuckle.

"Of course. Give me twenty minutes."

"Thanks."

I am a genius so it didn't take long for me to put this together: Steve busy all day at SHIELD reorganization meetings plus (or minus) Banner being out of town equaled Bucky either wanting to talk about Steve or wanting to talk about something he couldn't talk about with Steve around.

The only question was why Bucky thought I was the person to talk to.

He met me at the door to the apartment and I kept my face pleasantly neutral while he went through the process of letting me in - thoroughly checking me through the peep hole before throwing the very strong deadbolt, double checking me through the inch-opened door before dropping the very strong chain, then opening the door slowly but continuously a centimeter at a time.

"Thanks for coming," he said as he stood half-hidden behind the door, and when I walked in far enough he closed it and locked it much faster than he'd opened it.

"Choosing between one more meeting about the effect of casual Friday on staff morale or tasting the best Egg Cream in Washington? No contest."

He smiled and looked confused - even if Cap knew or understood the meaning of 'Casual Friday' I doubted he'd had reason to explain it to Bucky - and gestured towards me. He gestured first with both hands then just his right hand. He pulled his metal hand down and back slightly, as though trying to not obviously hide it. He wore leather sniper gloves on both hands.

"Can I take your coat?"

"Yeah, thanks." I turned and shrugged my wool overcoat into his hands. "It's not doing anything outside yet, but that sky is promising sleet by nightfall."

"Yeah."

He hung my coat on a hanger in the front closet but his movements were slow and thoughtful, only rehearsed and not natural. When that was done, he looked around as though trying to remember what he was supposed to do next.

Or trying not to remember what he shouldn't have done in the past.

Somewhere in this room was the wall through which he'd damn near killed Nick Fury; whoever had done the repairs had made them invisible to the naked eye, but I knew that memories could crawl into an exposed heart faster - and even more lethal - than shrapnel.

"Is it true there's no egg and no cream in an Egg Cream?" I asked. His shoulders came down, his head came up, he smiled.

"C'mon, I'll show you."

He led me to the kitchen. He was dressed in gray sweatpants, white socks, and a black t-shirt pulled over a white long sleeved t-shirt. His hair was still long; apparently he wouldn't let anyone, not even Cap, get near him with scissors or anything remotely resembling a weapon. So his hair was long and tucked behind his ears and except for the sniper gloves and metal hand he looked like any guy in his 20s or 30s just kicking back at home on a cold afternoon in early December.

"Have a - _oh_," he offered awkwardly when we walked to the kitchen and he apparently realized for the first time that there were no chairs and no place to sit. "Sorry."

I smiled and waved a "no big deal" at him and leaned back against a cupboard to watch him work at the kitchen island.

The few times I'd met Bucky so far, any attempt of mine to get even a surreptitious look at his robotic arm was generally met with the _Steve Rogers Glare of Death and Jaw of Indignation_. So I never got a really good look at it.

But now I had an unobstructed view as he made us each an Egg Cream which, as it turned out, was chocolate milk with a shot of club soda. I watched him handle the vintage Coke glasses, the carton of milk, the squeeze container of chocolate syrup and bottle of club soda easily and casually with both hands.

"You have very fine motor control with that hand, don't you?" I asked, as he handed me my glass of Egg Cream with his left hand.

The question startled him or gave him pause. He looked down and took a step back and seemed to be considering what to say. He put his left hand just enough behind his back to put it out of view.

After just a few seconds though, he lifted his head again.

"These should be made with seltzer, but club soda works okay, too."

I had to give him points for a smooth deflect. I took a sip of my Egg Cream and it wasn't bad.

"This is pretty good," I told him and took another swallow. "So, this was all the rage back in the day?"

"It was a cheap treat during the Depression, and fun to watch them make it, with the seltzer. Some guys could shoot it under their arm or over their shoulder. They could make a whole show out of it. You know?"

He took a hard swallow of his own beverage and glanced down and around as though he was tracking something across the kitchen the floor. Or as though he was reliving unpleasant memories.

"So, what did you want to talk to me about?" I asked him.

"Um - Christmas? I - uh - I need to buy Steve a present and - I - uh - I don't know what money's worth anymore."

He gave me an embarrassed smile but really - these days?

"You're not the only one, believe me," I told him.

"I'm sorry?"

"Nothing. Never mind. Sorry."

He gave me a brief look as though I might be insane before explaining,

"The first job I ever had was at Nussbaum's five and ten cent store. I worked twelve hours a day and made a dollar an hour. Now -" he held up both hands. "I found the catalog Steve ordered these gloves out of - they cost what would've been a month's pay back then. I don't know - these days is that a good price or insane?"

And a second later that indignation was gone, replaced by surprise or shame or self-reproach and he pulled his left hand behind himself again. It was at that moment I realized I was dealing with two Buckys. 'Brooklyn Bucky' of the 'take no shit, can you believe this crap' variety. And 'Broken Bucky' who hurt and regretted and feared.

"You don't have to hide your hand. If you think it makes me uncomfortable, it doesn't," I told him. "It's kind of my thing, you know?"

He considered me a few moments, then pulled his hand from behind his back and stared at it as he ran his metal thumb over his metal fingertips.

"I can feel if someone breathes on it."

"Wow. That's some sensitive technology. Can you pick up a pin?"

He looked confused, or maybe he was just thinking about it.

"I can pull the pin on a grenade. I've never had to pick up any other kind of pin."

"Yeah, I don't suppose you have to mend your own clothes."

Brooklyn Bucky grinned and shook his head. "Steve would darn his own socks if he could. He's always been - " And then Broken Bucky remembered something painful and stopped talking.

"So - what were you thinking of getting him?" I asked.

"I don't know. It was easier when we were kids. When you've got nothing, anything is something, you know? Now…"

He trailed off and looked away. Years away. More memories.

"What was the best present you ever gave Steve when you were kids?"

He rolled his eyes and 'pfft' and shrugged.

"_Steve? _Whatever I gave him, he said was the best. It could've been a whistle or Tiddly Winks or a Chinese Torture box or a sketch book or -"

"I'm sorry - could you go back - a _Chinese Torture box_?"

"Yeah, you know…" He put the very tips of both index fingers together, pointing them at each other and looked at me as though that explained everything.

I stared at his fingers and concentrated but - "Nope, I got nothing."

"You know - it's a narrow box with a woven tube inside. You put both fingers into the tube at the same time and then you can't pull them out. No matter how hard you pull, you can't pull them out."

"Really? That's what the Greatest Generation had for toys? Stick your fingers in and you can't pull them out again? Kids were a lot simpler back in your day, weren't they?"

"Kids had a lot more imagination back in my day," Brooklyn Bucky informed me. "We could do more with a cardboard box, a length of string and a little imagination than I've seen anybody yet do with all these gizmos and doohickeys and _no_ imagination."

I didn't ask him if he'd thought of giving Cap a length of string and a cardboard box because I didn't want to hurt Broken Bucky's feelings and I didn't want Brooklyn Bucky to hurt my spleen.

"Have you looked online for any ideas?" I asked.

"Online? Oh, you mean the - the - " he gestured with his head vaguely into the apartment. Cap must've had a computer stashed away somewhere. "Yeah, no, I - uh - I've tried, but things that look good some people in the - the _reviews _say are crap, and things that nobody says are crap cost more than my Pop's last car. I mean - is the sketch artist kit that cost a dollar ninety five when I was seventeen worth one hundred and three dollars now that I'm ninety seven? But more than anything, I just- I don't want to disappoint Steve."

As if that could be possible, I thought.

"Hey, you want to sit down?" He asked then and nodded toward the dining room and led the way there. "I still forget sometimes that people sit." He said that with a smile that Brooklyn Bucky meant to be self-deprecating and Broken Bucky hoped would hide the pain the admission caused him.

"Sure." I followed him out of the kitchen and into the dining room. He waved me to the chair at the head of the small table and he moved around to sit with his back to the window which would give him a clear view of the apartment, but he stopped and stared at the window. His knuckles were white on his glass and it was a good thing he held it in his right hand or he would've been holding a handful of shards.

"Um, excuse me," he said. He set the glass down with what I thought was exaggerated care and then with that same exaggerated care pulled the drapes shut over the dining room window. I couldn't imagine what might be distressing him - until I saw the circle of frost creeping around the window and I thought that it might look a lot like the window of a cryofreeze chamber.

"So tell me," I asked when he seemed stuck in place at the drapes, even after they were closed. "What's the best Christmas present Steve ever gave you?"

He looked back at me and smiled and I swear to God he blushed.

"Lottie LaRue."

"Lottie LaRue? Steve gave you a Lottie LaRue for Christmas? Wow, he _is_ a good friend."

"No," he laughed and sat at the table and hid his metal hand and then looked at me and rested it on top of the table, almost like he was testing out a theory. "All the fellas wanted to go out with Lottie. She was pretty and sharp and she said she'd meet me Christmas Eve at Garden of Sweets for a -" he indicated his glass of Egg Cream. "Steve told me he heard her making plans with Ward Hutchinson for that same night but I didn't believe him and we had a big argument. So I go to Garden of Sweets to wait for her and don't you know - I wait and wait until there she comes, waltzing in with Ward. She walks right past me like I'm nobody she's ever met before. Just like Steve said. It's getting late so I walk to church for midnight Mass and there's Steve in the last pew. It's crowded, standing room only, but he's sitting with his coat next to him so that when he moves his coat and shoves over a little there's just enough room for a wiseacre like me to sit down. Anybody else would've rubbed my face in it, but he never said another word about it."

He took a long swallow of his Egg Cream and said,

"So, anyway, he deserves the world's best Christmas present, for a lot of reasons."

"If it's a question of money -" I started to offer because I was getting ready to buy this guy the moon, but he shook his head.

"Nah. That's not a problem. Somebody put a bug in the ear of the War Department to have me reclassified from Killed in Action to -" he turned his metal hand and curled each finger one by one " - _Prisoner of War_. So I'm getting back pay. For all those years. It's a nice chunk of change, I gotta tell you. Steve and me aren't gonna have to worry about money for a long time."

"Steve and you," I said, commenting on how _Steve_ came first in that sentiment.

"Yeah. But hey - with SHIELD maybe closing its doors, if any of you fellas come up short or if you need anything, you just name it. You know? Don't even worry about it."

I knew exactly who put the bug in the ear of the 'War Department' and suddenly that 'nice chunk of change' paled in comparison to the offer this ex-POW had just made to take care of me and all the Avengers, no questions asked, if any one of us suddenly found ourselves on the skids.

"You know, Steve told me once that he knew guys worth ten of me. I just realized who he meant and what he was talking about."

Bucky looked surprised.

"That must've been one hell of an argument. Steve wouldn't have said something like that otherwise. And anyway - you flew him into enemy territory, and that could've got you killed. That wasn't -"

Just as I was trying to remember what SHIELD mission he was referring to, he stopped talking and reconsidered.

"No, that was your father. I'm sorry. That was - I forgot - I'm sorry - that was your father."

"My father?"

"Yeah, he - uh - he flew Steve into enemy territory to save my unit. To save me. I forgot - I forgot - "

He pulled his left hand into his lap and scrubbed his right hand over his face and through his hair. He looked seriously upset.

"Hey, being told I remind you of my Dad, that's not a bad thing," I told him.

"I just - I forget sometimes - a lot of times - I forget how long ago things happened. It's still - I forget."

"That's understandable. It's normal, even, I bet. "

"Normal," he echoed. "Look - I should tell you, I didn't ask you here just to talk about Christmas."

"Okay." That didn't come as a surprise to me. Somebody had to have suggested me to Bucky and nobody I could think of would've suggested me just to vet Christmas present ideas.

"Yeah, I was wondering," he gestured at his left arm and started to say something, but whatever that was going to be, he switched at the last second. "Dr. Banner said that everyone at SHIELD treats him as a man first and a threat second," he said. "Except you. He said that you treat him as a man and nothing else."

"Because that's what he is," I said. "That's what you are."

"Then what's this?" He asked, extending his metal arm towards me.

"It's part of you. You might not like it. You might not like why you have it or who gave it to you, but it's part of you."

He nodded and looked at his hand and then looked at me.

"Would you look at it for me?"

"Of course," I told him, maybe a little too fast. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. I don't know. It feels sluggish, sometimes, like I'm trying to move it through mud."

"Does that cause you pain?"

"No more than I usually feel."

"Well, that's a troubling answer," I muttered. "Would you like me to look at it now? I don't have any tools with me, but I'd be happy to take a look, see if we can figure out what's going on."

I tried not to sound too eager to get up close and personal with his robotic arm, because that wouldn't be creepy at all, would it? Bucky looked at his hand again, rubbing thumb across fingertips.

"I guess. Yeah. Thank you. If you're sure you don't mind."

"I don't mind at all; I'm happy to help."

He sat back and pulled his left arm across the front of himself and then crossed his right arm over it. A defensive posture. With his history, I didn't blame him for being wary of any kind of physical examinations.

"We can do it wherever you feel comfortable. Any _way_ you feel comfortable," I told him, then a thought occurred to me. "If you want to wait for Cap - "

That made Bucky laugh. A loud, honest, laugh.

"Steve doesn't even trust me to give myself a haircut. Can you imagine poking at this thing while he's nearby? You think you'd get very far before he was questioning your every move and you'd be pushing back and then nothing would get done?"

_This thing._ Not 'my arm'. Not even 'this arm'. But this _thing._

"When you were growing up," I asked him. "People had wooden legs, yeah? Glass eyes? Hooks that opened and closed and served as hands?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, well, these days we call those 'prosthetics'. You have a prosthetic arm. Granted, it's a highly advanced prosthetic arm, but it's still an arm. Your arm."

He gave me a look like a little kid who'd been told his puppy needed to be taken away and he didn't understand why.

"They always acted like I was attached to it, not the other way around," he said, and he sounded puzzled saying it, like maybe he was wrong for thinking they were wrong. "Nobody - no matter how many people were ever in a room because of me, nobody was ever there _for_ me. You know? It wasn't guarding me as much as it was - _containing_ me. "

"They were afraid of you," I said.

"And you're not."

"No, I'm not. Are you afraid of that?"

He smiled, "That's a good question." He pulled his left arm tighter against himself and rubbed his left shoulder. "I guess I'm afraid of a lot of things - I'm just not sure what they are."

"Yeah, that's pretty normal, too. Trust me. I've been there."

"Yeah. Yeah, Dr. Banner said you'd been taken prisoner and held captive in a war zone."

I didn't like having that part of my past brought up; it wasn't a comfortable feeling for me, especially when he sounded so casual about it. I was going to bungee our conversation back to Christmas when Bucky added,

"I guess that's the real reason I wanted to talk to you - I thought maybe you'd understand things that I didn't even know yet needed to be understood."

And his heartfelt compliment made me awkwardly stammer, "Wow, no one's ever accused me of being empathetic before," before I considered if I even ought to be saying it. But Bucky shrugged.

"Sometimes empathy's not what a guy needs. Sometimes he needs to know that just because he's breakable doesn't mean he's gonna break." He shrugged again and gestured to his shoulder. "Maybe we could go into Steve's room to look at this?"

"Yeah, sure. Wherever you want."

Still cradling his left arm, he stood up and led me to the one bedroom in the apartment. It looked pretty much like I expected the bedroom of a WWII hero to look like - lots of dark wood, a matching headboard and tallboy dresser, a perfectly made bed, and absolutely no clutter.

A straight-backed chair sat near the dresser and Bucky set it next to the bed. Then he looked down and his eyebrows pulled together in that _'please don't take my puppy'_ look while his hands tugged at the bottom of his t-shirts and his rate of breathing picked up. It looked like he was going to have a panic attack and I wondered which I was less prepared for - the Winter Soldier freaking out or Sgt. Barnes breaking down.

"I should call Steve, first," Bucky said. He let go of his shirt and pulled a phone out of his pocket. "I should let him know…" He stared at the phone a few beats and then stiffly and precisely pressed two buttons and held it to his ear.

He had Cap on speed-dial, and Cap apparently had him on speed-answer because it was only a few seconds before Bucky was saying,

"Hey. No, I'm good. I just wanted to tell you - I asked Mr. Stark over to have a look at my arm. No, he hasn't looked at it yet. I wanted to warn you before you walked into the apartment and blew your stack seeing somebody else in here with me. Yeah, I'm sure. I can handle it. No. No, I didn't ask him to stay for supper…because a fella comes to your house this time of day, of course he's gonna stay for supper." He looked at me. "You're staying for supper, right?"

"I'm staying for supper. Definitely," I agreed.

"See, he's staying," Brooklyn Bucky gloated over the phone. "I didn't need to ask him. How long are they keeping you there? You should head home now, before the weather changes. Hey, Hotshot - I don't care whether or not you can't catch pneumonia anymore. I care about you riding your motorcycle in snow. All right? All right. I'll see you soon."

He stashed the phone back into the pocket of his sweatpants and flashed me a grin.

"Punk doesn't want to admit that he's only ninety-nine percent invincible. All right, let's get this done."

He put his hands on the hem of his t-shirts but hesitated and I wondered if we were back to freaking out/breaking down, but he pulled them off and - _oh my God _the scars that ringed his shoulder at the armhole of his undershirt, like drag marks as though the metal arm had been ripped off of him repeatedly.

"What the hell did they do to you?"

"Uh - the first couple of arms didn't fit so good. They were too heavy and they - they - would pull off - "

He sounded like he was apologizing for his scars and he looked like he'd lost another puppy and my rage went from zero to nuclear so fast I needed a minute and a deep breath to keep my voice halfway normal.

"OK, just so we're clear, if you ever come across _anybody_ who had _anything_ to do with this, I know you and Cap will want your revenge on them, but for the love of God, leave me something to kill, will you? This is - this is - I can't even - I just - _ugh_."

I bent down to my work then, examining the metal plating and metal-to-flesh connection. Bucky stared at me several long beats.

"Thanks. I don't think I deserve that."

"No - you didn't deserve _this._" I gestured to his arm, but I meant so much more than just that and I think he knew it. He nodded and whispered, _'yeah'_, then added, _'thanks'_ again.

"You're welcome." I took his metal hand and manipulated his arm and tried to think of how to hopscotch our conversation past this latest agony. "So, you and Steve didn't go to Black Friday last week?" I asked.

He looked up at me, confused. "I don't know what that is."

"It's the day after Thanksgiving when people fight each other at dawn to get into the stores and save fifty percent on merchandise that's been marked up seventy-five percent."

Well, that did nothing for his confusion, if his expression was anything to go by.

"The only 'black' day I know is the crash, back in twenty-nine," he said. "That's the only time I ever saw my Pop cry. You know? My Mom said we'd be all right, she said we get through it. She did her housework and made supper like every day, but when it was time to eat, the food was raw because she forgot to light the oven."

He shook his head and stared off at the memories for a moment.

"But - she was right," he went on, after that moment. "We pulled through. Pop never let us go hungry. Never let anybody else go hungry if he could help it, either. We made it."

"Your folks sound like good people," I said and he nodded. "Okay, can you flex the armature of your arm? Now can you relax the plates? Good…thanks… So, your memories are coming back?"

"Yeah, sort of. Mostly. Sometimes they're just there like they always were, and sometimes it's like getting hit in the head with a brick they come back so hard."

I heard a soft mechanical _whir _and the plates on his arm locked up. Both of his hands were in a white knuckle grip - or what would've been a white knuckle grip for his left hand. He saw where I was looking and gave an embarrassed jerk of his head.

"That's why Steve got me these," he said, lifting his right fisted hand to indicate the sniper glove. "I kept digging my palm raw, even when I slept. This hand, too," he added, turning his left hand. "Well, you know, same thing, different result. So he got me these. It's been slowing down now, but - well - not enough. Not yet."

He put his right hand in his lap and seemed to be exerting some effort to uncurl his fingers.

"Have you thought of talking to someone?" I asked. "You know - a therapist, a counselor, someone?"

"No. I'm not gonna give somebody else control of my brain. I'm not ever gonna go through that again."

"When you talk to the right person, they help you take back control of your brain."

"Yeah, well, I guess that's what I have Steve for," he said. He punctuated it with a smile that was mostly embarrassed but also contained a measure of pride for his friend and protector, and for all the times I'd been jealous of Steve Rogers because he'd had my Dad, I was starting to be jealous of Bucky Barnes because he had Steve.

"So, Christmas," I got us headed back toward our very original topic of conversation. "If Steve could get you anything you wanted for Christmas, what would you want?"

"Me? Nothing. There's nothing left for Steve to give me. He never gave up on me. You know? He followed me. He found me and brought me home. He stayed with me that whole time I was in the hospital. Even now -" he gestured around the bedroom. "Every night I sleep in his bed and he sleeps on the couch. He helps me keep my head where it needs to be. There's nothing more he needs to give me."

"And if you could give Steve anything at all, what would you give him?"

That took Bucky a moment longer to answer, but it wasn't because he had to think about it.

"I'd be standing right next to him when he put that plane into the ice."

"Have you told Steve that?" I asked and a short, fast, shake of his head said that those words weren't necessary.

"He knows."

"Yeah, I'm sure he does."

We spent some long minutes then with me examining his arm, asking him to move it this way or that way, to tense or relax the plates so I could get a look at the workings inside.

"Well, it looks like there's some corrosion on the wiring, or maybe it's a buildup or byproduct of secondary electroplating from the current running through your arm that needs some routine maintenance to remove it. Removing it should take care of the sluggishness. When I have my tools and can take a proper look at it, I'll know better. "

"Okay, thanks." He seemed pleased with the answer and pulled his shirts on. "Would I have to go to a lab or - or -"

I almost answered, _'Yes, of course', _ while visions of all my tools and toys danced in my head. But my dreams of 'toys' were undoubtedly his nightmares of torture.

"No, not at all. Anything I need, I can bring here. That's not a problem at all."

"Good. Okay. Thanks. Thanks."

"Sure."

He led the way back into the kitchen, with a fast detour through the dining room to grab our Egg Cream glasses.

"Refill?"

"Please."

I reclaimed my spot leaning against the cupboard while Bucky made a second round of Egg Creams.

"So, if you want, I can swing by tomorrow and pick you up to go Christmas shopping," I offered. "There's plenty of places around D.C. I'm sure we could find something for Cap."

He looked puzzled or thoughtful or even briefly worried, but then his expression cleared.

"That'd be great, thanks. I appreciate it."

"Well, for you, James - anything."

He smiled and offered me my Egg Cream.

"Call me Bucky."

The End.


End file.
